The legal battle between Vail Resorts Inc. and Powdr Corp. has come to an end, with Vail acquiring Powdr’s Park City Mountain Resort in Park City, Utah, for $182.5 million in cash. Powdr had owned the resort, consistently ranked among the top five ski resorts in North America, for the last 20 years.

It all started with a missed lease renewal a few years ago, and nosedived into litigation that, among other potential fallout, threatened the 2014-2015 season at the resort, which offers some 3,300 acres for skiing.

“Selling was the last thing we wanted to do, and while we believe the law around this issue should be changed, a protracted legal battle is not in line with our core value to be good stewards of the resort communities in which we operate,” John Cumming, CEO of Powdr, explained in a prepared statement.

The deal gives Vail the entire assets of Greater Park City Co., the land used for ski terrain at the resort held by Ian Cumming, and certain base parking lands owned by Powdr Development Corp. Those parking sites provide room for growth–or capital through disposition–as they’re zoned for 687,000 square feet of commercial and residential development. At Powdr’s insistence, all resort employees will stay on in their current jobs.

Now Vail is looking to the future. It wants to work with the community and local government to combine Park City Mountain Resort with Vail’s own Canyons Park City property, Utah’s biggest ski resort. As Vail CEO Rob Katz noted in a statement, the result would be “the largest mountain resort in the United States.”